Nvidia's Shield handheld will now ship July 31

Originally scheduled for a June 27 debut, Nvidia's Shield console was postponed at the eleventh hour. Now, Nvidia has finally set a new ship date for the device: July 31.

In the official announcement, Nvidia thanks customers for their patience and for "sticking with us through the shipment delay." It adds, "Our goal has always been to ship the perfect product, so we made sure we submitted SHIELD to the most rigorous mechanical testing and quality assurance standards in the industry."

Quality control was the stated cause for the delay. Nvidia didn't go into specifics, but it cited a mechanical issue tied to a "third-party mechanical component." It claimed to be working "around the clock" on a fix.

In case you missed our earlier coverage, the Shield is Nvidia's first handheld game console. It has a five-inch, 1280x720 screen, a Tegra 4 processor, 2GB of RAM, a built-in Xbox-style controller, and an HDMI output with support for 4K displays. In addition to running Android games, the Shield is capable of streaming PC titles from a GeForce-equipped PC. The battery is rated for 5-10 hours of gameplay and up to 24 hours of video playback. Nvidia originally planned to charge $349 for the Shield, but it cut the price to $299 last month.